#I promise I don't have anything against Bandle city or the rest of the yordles lol

[tinypurplewizardfan]

Hearing Teemo call Veigar short for Yordle is probably the most daring thing to do, I wonder what kind of relationship these two have and if maybe Teemo already says these jokes to Veigar often because he doesn't seem annoyed, their interactions are ambiguous anyway

Ahh!! I'm so sorry anon, this ask got lost in the depths of my inbox for some reason. I managed to find it again though!

I always took Teemo's "aww, only for a yordle!" and "what was that?" as being pretty demeaning in Veigar's direction. Teemo basically isn't taking him seriously, which is basically pushing Veigar's number one button.

I always thought it interesting that Teemo is kind of the inverse to Veigar- Teemo portrays himself as innocent and cute so that foes underestimate him, whereas Veigar tries very hard to get himself taken seriously from the get-go. But despite the difference in strategies, both are very effective at killing people and getting the job done.

I also feel like they're similar in another way regarding their relationship with the rest of Bandle City. Bandle City is all happy sunshine and rainbows, where everybody's best friends and nobody ever has to do anything alone. . . but that doesn't leave any room for yordles like Teemo and Veigar, who sometimes prefer to be alone. Teemo's two paragraphs of lore state that other yordles even feel something "off" about him and find it scary how he prefers to go on missions alone. I can't help but feel that this isn't because Teemo's secretly some sort of psychopath, but simply because he's an introvert in a culture where everybody's expected to engage in as much social activity as possible.

Perhaps Teemo's overly bright and chipper exterior is just a façade he plays to in order to fit in with the culture he was raised in. This is the opposite of how Veigar reacted, which was to become cartoonishly evil in part as a rejection of Bandle's happy-go-lucky attitude. Them, along with Vex, are the yordles who kind of got "left behind" by Bandle's insistence on intense socializing and forbiddance of negative emotions.

I guess I think way to much about how Bandle City's "perfect" culture could leave some yordles behind because that was highlighted in Vex's short story, along with the fact that I am neurodivergent and the idea living in a town where everybody has to be hanging out and smiling 100% of the time sounds like sensory hell.

So! To actually answer your question- I definitely don't think the two are friends. Far from it, actually, given Teemo's tendency to demean Veigar and not take him seriously. Despite this, I still think Veigar has a modicum of respect or at least understanding for Teemo's position. I imagine it's kind of like the trope "we're the same, you and I"- Veigar might try and tempt him to the dark side. Whether Teemo would actually consider this proposition or reject it outright is entirely up to your interpretation of him.